Various technologies and techniques exist for separating mixtures of liquids into their individual components. Distillation—specifically fractional distillation—is the most common form of separation technology used in the chemical process industries and is a critical part of petroleum refining, petrochemical and chemical production, and natural gas processing. Oil refineries, for example, employ fractional distillation to separate crude oil into useful components comprised of different hydrocarbons with different boiling points.